Seeing all of the #grateful posts (on Facebook and other social media) and my own grateful posts of years’ past, I am simply grateful that I am in another season. I know my life looks extraordinary and too often extraordinarily easy. To those who know and love me, they know this isn’t necessarily so. Some days are quite a bit more difficult than they have ever been. Still, I am blessed to have an extraordinary life interrupted by a few ordinary days. Today, as I am wrapped in a comforter in the sitting room of a sweet flat in France, I am embracing both the ordinary and the extraordinary. Anywhere you are all this requires is your attention to it. Alas, I have grown in wisdom and grace. My heart bursts with an abundance of love. I have learned to be gentle with myself. This is not the opposite of being hard on oneself. Being kind to yourself is a necessity. Some days I feel anxious but I am not afraid. I live boldly in spite of many limitations. On the days I feel soul-weary or dead tired, I continue to create beautiful thoughts and shine light in dark places. I am honored to inspire others to live more authentically. Still, some of my own dark places I shut away. When the pain pops up every now and then, I count my blessings and I try very hard not to compare what others gained by my loss. Grateful I only have to live with my own conscience. Occasionally when met with another’s desperation, I will share a treasure from this vault. After all, all of this has formed me. I used to think of seasons as set points in time (fall, spring, raising young children, my 30’s, etc.). Now I understand that seasons can be arduously long or pass in an instant. For example, I not so long ago experienced the deepest heartbreak, and it seemed to last forever. I felt as if I was falling backwards, and losing ground. Upon reflection, I wonder if it was that relationship which ended so cruelly that had me reeling, or something left buried from every betrayal finally breaking open? That season lasted for more than a year. But, it also brought me into a season of bountiful living, where one decision changed my entire world. Oh, and of course, seasons also cross over each other. One only has to look at our current weather patterns that no longer align with the months I knew as a child. Yet, I am not so concerned with the storms swirling around me when I have peace on the inside. Not just a spiritual peace, but the peace that comes from knowing myself well. Even if no one else ever does understand me. I am grateful that I have loved, nourished, taken time to not just learn about – but be fascinated by – everything that makes me smile, cry, have stars in my eyes, recoil, try harder, jump for joy, and just plain tick, and ticks me off. May your life be as rich as mine.

~Just L (Thoughts from a chair in France, November 5, 2017)

Feeling très French.           (American woman in Nyons)